JulianRota
9d ago
I used AI to replace what I guess could have been a doctor's visit. I had some questions about an OTC medication I was taking for seasonal allergy issues, so I went to Gemini. The initial question seemed a bit basic to bother setting up an actual doctor's visit. It gave good answers to everything, helped identify some issues it was causing me, and suggested some other treatments (other OTC medications), one of which I tried and was much better. It's honestly a way, way better experience than anything I've done with the "proper" healthcare system. AI will give you an answer to any sane question at any hour of the day or night immediately, doesn't mind at all if I ignore a conversation for a week and then ask another question to continue it, and it actually listens to things you tell it better than most doctors. I know it's not as reliable as a real doctor, but I think I'm smart enough to apply common sense, ask for references to properly validated information sources, and only actually use treatments purchased from a real brick-and-mortar drugstore that are advertised to treat the proper conditions and used in accordance with their labeling etc.
In comparison, a proper doctor requires the slog of finding one of the appropriate specialty that my insurance accepts, setting an appointment that might be a week or two away, travelling to the office, usually filling out a ton of forms answering a slew of questions unrelated to my actual complaint, usually getting seen late, talking to a nurse first, then actually talking to a doctor for a few minutes, and that's the only time they'll actually answer any questions, since apparently email is too insecure, so nobody uses it, even if I positively give zero fucks who knows about my allergy issues. Though even if the system worked perfectly and I could use email or some similarly convenient modern communication medium to ask questions of a doctor, it's a bit much to expect a real expert to answer any question instantly 24x7. I know there are some things that will basically always require a real doctor, but for the minor stuff in the gaps, this feels like a great solution to me.
JulianRota
9d ago
Finished Artemis by Andy Weir. It turned out roughly as I would have expected. It's a simple nice fun Sci-Fi story, would probably make a good movie if anyone cared to produce it.
I started reading Day Of Ascension by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I haven't generally been real into the Warhammer stuff, but trying it out to see if it scratches my itch for plots that don't go in the direction I would expect.
JulianRota
9d ago
I got 50%. Not too surprising. I often feel like I'm worse at recognizing faces than average, and that I often recognize people more by their body language and way of moving and voice than by face. I also occasionally get the impression that a person who is a random stranger is actually a person I know.
JulianRota
10d ago
I wouldn't expect to get much from a local model unless you're basically an expert in how to set up these things with world-class hardware. If you really want to see what it can do, pony up the $20 for a subscription to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Cursor, whoever. AFAIK, they're all easy to cancel after that one month. On a personal device if you need to and corporate is being all uptight about what's done on work devices.
I still don't trust it to write large amounts of code that isn't just boilerplate or make any architectural decisions, but it's quite good at tracking down problems and fixing bugs on its own. I've been using it a significant amount on a Python project I've taken on at work - I don't really know Python all that well, and it's a big help with some of the trickier parts. Using OpenCode with our corporate account for Claude Opus 4.6 in Agent mode, it seems to work well to set up a unit test that exercises a problem and tell it to run that test and fix the issue in the proper place. When I run into some bug or confusing point that I can't make much sense of, and I expect that solving it myself would involve hours of web searching and poring over library docs, it usually is able to solve it in under a minute. And the fix and reason why it works is explained and usually only a couple of lines of code, so it's easy to verify that it's correct and not doing any other crazy stuff.
You definitely do IMO need to treat it like a over-enthusiastic junior and carefully review everything it does to ensure it makes sense.
JulianRota
14d ago
Yeah, I've read it, it's been a while though.
Personally, I think the first space colony is likely to be a stiflingly regulated affair populated only by people the supporting state considers to be scrupulously rule-following good boys and girls. Maybe possibly the tenth might be a little more frontier-like.
I haven't red a ton of Heinlein, but I got the impression that the politics of his books vary widely over a bunch of axes. Like he's trying to explore or feel out a variety of viewpoints rather than jamming any one particular one down everyone's throat.
JulianRota
16d ago
Started reading Artemis by Andy Weir, also known for the Martian. I'm about 60% through, and I like it quite well so far. The Sci-Fi seems pretty hard so far - all of the technology and systems seem reasonable by current-day or near-future tech and physics. If anything is a bit implausible, it's the politics - a Moon colony formed by a space industry based out of Kenya, just based on the government deciding to let rocket companies do what they feel like with minimal taxes and regulations? And becoming sufficiently populous to resemble a real city with hardly any real government at all? Seems like a bit much of a Libertarian pipe-dream to me. The story is engaging and keeps me wanting to read more though. It does lean a bit hard on the trope of desperately poor but plucky young girl saves the world through daring and determination, but I'll allow it. I might have more to say when I finish it, but I doubt it - Weir's books so far seem to be more about telling a pretty good if somewhat predictable story with some Sci-Fi elements, not so much surprising plot twists and daring societal commentary.
JulianRota
23d ago
I recently finished reading Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, perhaps better known as the Ice-9 book, first published in 1963. It seems like it's supposed to be a highly satirical book that probably made a lot more sense at the time it was published. For me, reading it in 2026, it seemed kind of weird and lame; a bunch of weird characters who didn't make much sense running around and doing stuff that doesn't make much sense. At least the chapters are strangely short, I did at least manage to finish it. I was more interested in the Sci-Fi Ice-9 stuff, but that was maybe like 10% of the book, mostly the last few chapters, and very little discussion of it. I expect a good Motte thread about the idea would be way more interesting. My recommendation is, if you're genuinely interested in 1960s-era social commentary, it may be worth a read. If you're interested in Sci-Fi around the Ice-9 idea, don't bother.
JulianRota
1mo ago
For cash, usually zero to a thousand or so. I don't pay particularly close attention to keeping it up. It's more for if I'm about to go somewhere but find I don't have that much cash in my wallet, it's slightly easier to grab some than to stop at an ATM, though that's not at all hard either. I don't take it too seriously as emergency prep, mostly since living in a big city, any massive crisis that results in me not being able to get more cash from ATMs easily or buy things with cards will also cause much bigger, more widespread, and difficult to predict chaos that a little cash is not likely to save me from.
What I do consider as more useful emergency prep to keep safely stored at home is a valid working credit card and ATM card, working spare phone with no service, and expired spare ID. I can lose pretty much everything I typically carry on me and not experience significant hassle.
JulianRota
1mo ago
I tend to think that it ties in with the Socialization point. Drinking at home alone is generally pretty bad for your mental state in my opinion, and ditto any other drugs. I would even agree with pouring out any alcohol you have at home. Drinking with a bunch of friends or at a bar is mostly pretty good, presuming you are capable of not overdoing it. Even going to a decent bar by yourself, where you are getting out of the house, and maybe have the opportunity to chat a little bit with a bartender or some other customers, or maybe possibly even make a friend or two, overrides the negative effect of the drinks and even of some not super great food.
I'm not sure where it belongs on an ordered list, but I think there should also be a point for taking care of yourself and your spaces. I mean like, take a shower every day, shave, trim nails, get regular haircuts, any other standard grooming tasks that apply, put on fresh clean clothes every day, that are in good condition, no holes or stains or whatever. Do it every day, no matter what, whether or not you're feeling great or planning on going anywhere. If you don't have any decent clothes, go buy some. Do laundry and wash the dishes regularly too. Whatever space you live in, vacuum, mop, dust, scrub, and otherwise tidy up regularly. Not necessarily every day or perfectly, but don't let anything get too dirty. Make your bed every day, put away dirty laundry, clean up half-finished projects, etc. Fix any broken stuff around the house too. Generally take care of everything along those lines. This creates a reasonably nice and clean space you can take a little pride in all the time. It helps you see and feel that you're not completely falling apart. It's nice, positive work to do that keeps your mind off of all of the negative influences listed above. And if you get a unexpected urge or invitation to go out and do something, or have friends or family over, you don't have the automatic excuse of looking like a slob or your place being a disaster area, you can just do it.
JulianRota
1mo ago
Yes. I'm in my mid-40s now. I suppose I'd be called a social binge drinker, and I do have a fairly high tolerance, but I have cut down on how drunk I am willing to get in the last couple of years due to hangovers getting worse.
I basically never drink at home. If I'm staying home on a given night, I won't drink at all. I try not to drink more than 3 nights a week or so on average, with some variation depending on what events are going on. Usually I go out with friends or to some sort of event, and I may drink like 4 to 8 drinks, depending on how big and strong they are. That's mostly mid-strength beers, since I like the taste and find it easier to regulate myself with beer. I may drink wine, mixed drinks, or shots occasionally, depending on the type of place and who I'm with, but I try to limit that to 1, maybe 2 a night, since they go down too easy and tend to lead to getting excessively drunk. Most of my friends drink around the same amount most of the time.
One weird quirk that seems to have started hitting me more in the last few years is that I don't like to drink too little, because I find that drinking only 1 or 2 drinks tends to disrupt my sleep patterns, making me wake up too early and have trouble getting back to sleep. Drinking a moderate amount, per above, usually results in a pretty good night's sleep and minimal hangover effect the next day. If I drink too much, then I still sleep decently well, but get a much worse hangover that might take the better part of the next day to get over.
Another quirk - I started making this electrolyte drink in a big pitcher at home, and I'll try to drink a glass full anytime I get home after a session of drinking. I think it helps cut down on the hangovers, which I have come to think electrolyte deficiency probably plays a big part in. Notably, if this is true, it also means that the common advice of drinking lots of water when drinking alcohol may work against you, since it only contributes more to draining your electrolytes. It's the same mechanism by which you can die from drinking too much water.
JulianRota
1mo ago
Whether it's "easy" depends on your point of view, but you can request a set of API keys from the Apps page on your setting panel, and then it's pretty straightforward to make API requests to retrieve all of your posts - I already did that for mine. You might have to ping Zorba on the Discord to get him to approve the request, but he probably will as long as you aren't trying to do anything crazy or dumb.
JulianRota
1mo ago
I haven't noticed those particular things, though I may be the wrong person to ask because I never had a very strong sense of taste.
I have however noticed that the types of beef available at most, but not all, of my local grocery stores seems to have changed. Most of the selection used to be in those styrofoam tray things covered with shrink-wrap, and it consisted of ground beef in various semi-random weights and various cuts of steak also in various semi-random weights. Items that seemed as if somebody in a butcher shop somewhere was lopping of cuts of meat and scoops of ground beef onto these trays in a semi-sloppy way, wrapping them, then weighing and labeling them. Now, those items seem to be gone from a number of stores, replaced with similar items in a fancier-looking package and a more mass-produced style. The ground beef is now only in quantities of exactly 1lb, and too bad if you want any fractional quantities. The steaks also seem to have a more uniform style and cost at least double the price too. The other meats I've looked at seem to have some similar changes, but without as much mass-produced uniformity. I do not like this change, and have been doing my purchases of such things from other stores that seem to have better selections.
I got 294, weakest on the Aesthetic Knowledge part, which seems reasonable to me.
It does help a lot to actually read the rules on the first page and consider them when answering - knowing that exactly 5 are correct on every one and that it mostly works against you to guess randomly since not picking wrong choices wins you a point too.
JulianRota
4mo ago
Hello! I'm not particular sure why I managed to get the lowest currently-valid non-admin user ID. I was more involved in the site and in the coding of this version at the time we switched over, but I wouldn't have thought active enough to be the first registered. Oh well, here we are!
JulianRota
5mo ago
I don't really like to speculate too far in that direction to avoid giving people ideas. There definitely are people on this board who have posted about at least thinking about doing such things. Hopefully nobody actually will, but who knows for sure, and there's no telling who else reads but doesn't post.
I will say though that I think firearms, at least in the hands of one or a few people, are a pretty bad way of killing large numbers of people. In a way, we're relatively fortunate that most such nutcases are still using them. Fire and explosives are much more effective at such things.
JulianRota
5mo ago
I bought and started The Sun Also Rises, but I only made it about halfway through. It just doesn't seem that interesting to me, mostly ordinary-ish people doing ordinary-ish things. If there's supposed to be some great appeal to it, I just don't get it.
I've been reading The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski too. He was an Africa correspondent for Poland's state newspaper in the late 50s-early 60s. He's got a lot of stories about the adventures of travelling around Africa in that era and of the political chaos surrounding the end of colonial rule. The descriptions of how a lot of people in Africa live seem amazing to me - many of them have such completely different values than anything I've encountered, and you can see the ways in which those values shape their societies. Apparently their family and tribal ties are so strong that anyone is obligated to help anyone else in their family or tribe any time they can. As a result of which, for practical purposes, apparently nobody ever saves or accumulates anything because everything gets used up as soon as they get it. Obviously, not every single person lives like that, but it seems to be quite common.
JulianRota
6mo ago
First, it's not clear what the ublock numbers are actually measuring. It could include things like ad-like elements removed from the page, or requests blocked that get automatically re-attempted. Maybe on one, it manages to block a whole script that would have done a bunch of stuff, earning a block count of 1, while on the other, the script runs but gets all of the things it tries to do blocked, leading to hundreds of block count entries.
I don't think anyone deliberately adds hundreds of trackers directly to a page. But it's plausible they have a single-digit number of moderately sketchy advertising and analytics services directly added which provide various overlapping services, each of which themselves pulls in several other tracking and analytics gadgets.
They might also have no skill or budget for proper website building tools, so they use sketchy no-code services for basic stuff like account management, accessibility, social media sharing, etc, which all insert their own tracking and analytics scripts using yet more third-party services. There's a whole ecosystem for this sort of thing that most people who would consider themselves coders never touch.
For a stock trading site specifically, they may not bother with visible ads. It's likely they have a lot of analytics for stuff like, which prompts and arrangement of controls etc makes it more likely users will actually create an account and execute a trade, what prompts for higher tiers make it more likely you'll actually upgrade, which of their own ads leads to users coming to the site, creating an account, and using it, where their users are and when they're active, that sort of thing. It's quite possible they also make extra from ad network tracking scripts, connecting your use of a stock trading site at all plus your activities there to your advertising identity for more valuable and better targeted ads elsewhere.
JulianRota
6mo ago
I have at least some elements of this. Though mostly not quite as bad as some of the other posters in this thread. I think some of mine is probably a little ridiculous and excessive, and some is quite justified.
I never had much appetite for participating in traditional social media. The kind like Facebook and Instagram where you're expected to have an account under your real name and accumulate as "friends" everyone you've ever known, or even met for a few minutes one time. I just can't think of anything I really want to post or show to such a huge variety of people. I've pretty much abandoned the original accounts I had on these and never even check them at all. All of the bad behavior and dark patterns of big tech don't particularly help and provide additional justification, but I think that feeling is the actual core reason for me. So I do the majority of my online social interaction in relatively small group chats of people I know well. I think this is probably healthier overall anyways.
I do feel an urge to conceal things I look at at work, where we're all in a big open office with everyone's screen visible. I think I've managed to keep it mostly under control. I tell myself that nobody's going to pay attention to a big wall of text, so it doesn't matter what it says. I try to avoid having any pictures or video displayed too long and often switch out of "personal" browsers when someone comes by my desk.
Strangely, I actually feel the complete opposite sometimes. I actually love performing on stage in front of big audiences. Always have, never needed to do any particular trick or technique for it. Maybe it's because I'm consciously putting on an act, or that there's so many people that none of them really "count" as people. I'm not quite sure.
I think I like showing only certain parts of myself to most people and social groups. I think I've always had a bit of a split personality. I have a need for a certain amount of spice in my life, and probably some of the things I've done or enjoy would really shock and put off some of the tamer groups I'm around, like most work people, tech-related groups, probably most rationalist-sphere groups. So I mostly hide that part of myself in those places. I also enjoy nerding out on things, understanding things in way too much detail, writing excessively in-depth effortposts here sometimes. I know some of the more out-there people I'm friends with don't care to hear that sort of thing, so I hide that part of myself around them. Is this excessive hiding, or just reading the room and fitting in to social groups? I'm not entirely sure. I feel mostly pretty satisfied with my friendships, even though I don't think any one person really gets all of me.
JulianRota
7mo ago
I've been reading, and am most of the way through Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island: The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation. It's decent I guess. I'd say it's kind of two types of book combined into one.
One type, and the type IMO it actually works at, is as a series of short stories about the air battles between the "Cactus Air Force" on Guadalcanal in WWII and the Imperial Japanese forces. This is in the early days of the war, when American forces were mostly few in number, poorly trained, poorly equipped, and going up against the the cream of the crop of experienced Japanese veterans. The forces end up fairly evenly matched overall, and the stories are exciting. The Americans sometimes take a beating and sometimes dish one out, depending on the details of how well equipped they are at the moment, what tactics the Japanese use that particular time, the weather, etc.
The other type is as a coherent overall story with characters that you care about and who have a narrative. I think it fails at that. There's just too many people, coming and going at random times. There's brief individual stories about some of them, but I don't feel like I remember any of them in particular, or understand them or really care about them in particular. Major issues get brought up as a huge problem, then just forgotten about.
Of course, I still respect their sacrifices and all that. I just don't think it works narratively. It does make me understand a bit more why so many more compelling but fictional war movies keep the focus excessively tightly on a small group that suffers relatively few casualties during the story, even if that isn't really that realistic.
JulianRota
7mo ago
What do people think about replacing batteries on modern smartphones?
My current phone is a 2-year old Pixel 8, and the battery is starting to get noticeably worse. Nothing too dire yet, but it is starting to seem beneficial to do some extra charging during the day in addition to leaving it on a charger all night. In the past, every time a phone of mine has started to see serious battery degradation, I've gotten a whole new phone, because at least one of the following was also the case:
- Various minor physical damage had accumulated - screen cracks, scratches and scuffs on the edge or back, etc
- It had become generally slow and flaky
- I was actually excited about the new features and capabilities of the newer models
- Total physical destruction or loss
Now, for the first time, none of those are the case. This phone is still in perfect physical condition, runs great, and there's nothing I find interesting about the newer models. It feels like a bit much to get a whole new one just because of the battery thing, so I'm wondering if it might make sense to replace just the battery.
On the other hand, I looked up the instructions for how to do it. Yikes. Apparently I would need like a dozen pricey specialized tools to do it myself and the whole process sounds really sketchy, like there's a dozen ways to accidentally break something if I do anything a little bit wrong. So maybe I take it to a shop to do it. I guess that might be a good option, but it's hard to see online how much that would cost or get a feel for how reliable such services are.
So I guess, has anyone else done it themselves or had a shop do it? I don't think it matters much exactly what brand or model phone, it seems like they all have similar construction and disassembly techniques and risks. Were you happy with the result? Was it worth the cost versus getting a whole new device?
JulianRota
8mo ago
In my opinion, if you're mostly on the road, not doing serious distance yet, and not entirely sure what kind of riding you want to do, then a Hybrid is probably what you want. Usually they're mostly mountain bike frame and parts, but smoother tires, possibly road wheels, and at least slightly relaxed handlebars. They're usually okay-ish at pretty much everything and not terrible at anything. Maybe not quite enough tire grip and wheel strength for semi-serious trail riding, and not quite comfortable enough for long rides at high effort level compared to a road bike, but you probably won't notice until you actually try to do those things.
You probably want brand names on everything, but not top-end stuff. Usually means Shimano parts and pretty much any brand advertised and sold in actual bicycle stores. 2012ish Trek hybrid sounds decent as long as it comes reasonably close to fitting you. I don't honestly know what that runs these days, but used is probably a good deal. Bikes like this will usually go thousands of miles without breaking stuff, and are easy to fix or replace parts on if needed. The Walmart specials tend to start falling apart after a few hundred miles and be difficult to fix or find replacement parts for.
It may take some experience to understand how road bikes are really supposed to fit and work. You should be leaning forward enough to put significant weight on your hands. The drop bars provide several places to put your hands to help with this strain. Between putting significant force on the pedals most of the time and keeping some weight on your hands, there shouldn't be that much weight on the seat most of the time, so it's not meant to be that comfortable for just tooling around.
The only bike I actually have right now is a fixed-gear on a road bike frame I built many years ago. It's decently fun and comfortable for most things for me, and ugly enough to not be an attractive theft target. The lack of gears make it not that great for climbing hills/bridges, but it's okay for me on the ones near me. Also not great for carrying cargo, but I don't have much need for that now. I used to have a nice hybrid like the one I'm suggesting, which had decent saddlebags for cargo, but it got stolen a while ago. I do miss it a bit, but I wouldn't have storage room for it now anyways. I sold my nicer road bike a while ago too, since I don't ride long-distance much anymore.
It might also be worth getting a setup for changing out tire tubes that you can ride with if you are interested in riding at least moderately far away from home and civilization.
JulianRota
9mo ago
Okay that sounds like a reasonable take, I missed getting an update on that event sufficiently long after it happened for the truth to actually come out.
Though I might quibble a little about whether it was a "dirty lie", or wild speculation very soon after the event before any actual facts came out, which there tends to be an ample amount of after any high-profile event, including the Kirk assassination.
JulianRota
9mo ago
Disagree, look at the 60s and 70s.
By "this era" I did mean after the 60s and 70s era of political unrest. Not sure of an exact date actually, I guess after the relatively domestically peaceful 80s and 90s. Though I suppose you'd then have to overlook the OKC bombing, which is maybe reasonable, since it was more anti-government than anti either political party or tribal side.
That wasn't anymore fabricated than a typical sting operation. Maybe you're against police stings in general, but it's common. Happen with drugs, prostitution, money laundering, child pornography honeypots, fake assassination hiring sites etc.
I'm not against police stings in general, but there's most definitely a line they have crossed at times where it seems more like they're enabling or encouraging crime that wouldn't otherwise happen instead of thwarting people with serious intent to commit major crimes. I don't know about the case you cited in particular, but they have definitely done this with so-called Islamic terrorists too. In this case they "befriended" some developmentally disabled teenager and eventually cajoled him into sending pitifully small amounts of money to somebody he believed was associated with ISIS, then busted him and patted themselves on the back for "stopping ISIS". Do you think that's an appropriate use of police resources?
Exactly where the line is for this is a bit fuzzy. But I think a good indicator that you're way off on the wrong side of the line is when multiple defendants get acquitted after a successful entrapment defense.
JulianRota
9mo ago
I don't know all of these for sure, but:
Pelosi's husband being attacked.
I don't think there was any indication the attacker was a conservative who hated them for being liberal. As I recall, it was more like some sort of dispute between friends or possibly lovers.
The kidnapping plot against Whitmer.
You mean the one that was entirely fabricated by FBI informants?
And Luigi Mangione is the only one that deserves an asterisk?
I think this might qualify as the most explicitly political violence yet to happen in this era of political division. Depending on who they turn up as the shooter, presuming that they do eventually.
It depends on what one considers to be ethical or unethical. Which is a substantial problem - I'm not sure even your "obvious" examples are really that unethical.
Third world "sweatshops" are a bit of a mixed bag. Sure, they're a harder day's work than being a Starbucks barista. But is anyone actually forced to work on one? As far as I know, that's never been a thing. That means they can't get workers unless they're a better deal than their local competition, usually subsistence farming, as far as time and difficulty of work versus payment. In addition to that, they bring foreign currency and industrial infrastructure into the nation, get some local laborers and probably managers used to how to operate an industrial business. That's a big part of how you actually lift a third-world country into the first world. And the companies are getting cheaper labor, yeah, but they're not going to bother bringing industry into that country without getting something for it. Yeah, it's sad not everyone in the world is a first-world latte-sipping poet or something, but you don't get there from subsistence farming by wishes and magic, you get there by gradual economic progress, some of which might look like "sweatshops".
Even if we granted that they were "unethical" somehow, would that make Taylor Swift "unethical" automatically? As far as I know, her money comes mostly from ticket sales, album sales, other royalties, and such things. Making merch is probably a tiny part of her budget however it's done. If that's enough to make her "unethical", is anyone with any actual power "ethical"?
Not paying employees what some uninvolved party thinks is the fair value of their labor seems a bit iffy too. Usually neglected is the stability value they get too. Owners risk losing some or all of their money if the business does poorly, but the workers either continue to get paid, or get fired at worst. They don't stand to lose much. That's worth something too.
Focusing exclusively on billionaires seems a bit iffy to me too. It seems to me, what we're really concerned with here is power. Yes, billionaires have a moderate amount of power, but they're not the only ones. Why shouldn't we focus on Government too, both elected and un-elected officials too? They're the ones with the power to tax us, fine us, imprison us, start wars, etc. Why isn't any government official who doesn't magically make the world operate like some activist wants also "unethical"? Billionaires can only create great products and services we all like to make money, and they lose it again if their businesses fail. Governments can impose terrible economic systems like marxism on a nation, causing millions to starve to death.
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